


let's end this right

by superstarrgirl



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst, Breakup Sex, Hand Jobs, M/M, Post-Zayn, also its set before the release of pillowtalk, angst and feelings, basically an open response to zayn's billboard article yes i know im late, though they're technically not dating, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5988640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarrgirl/pseuds/superstarrgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall, the bastard, has the audacity to laugh as he kisses Zayn again, open-mouthed and desperate. “Whole point of this is to stop missing you.” He whispers, and then he drops to his knees.</p><p>Zayn’s brain short-circuits, sue him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's end this right

**Author's Note:**

> heya! so basically this was written in response to zayn's billboard article, because i love him to pieces and whatnot but i was a little upset by the way he handled himself. i know the article was released ages ago but this has been in the works for a little bit and i just decided to go ahead and post it so. here we are. 
> 
> also, i've never really written sex before? like, it's not something i'm particularly good at writing, which is why this has very minimal description of them actually having sex. there's a lot of feelings and stuff, because that's more my speed :)
> 
> and please, please, don't take anything here to heart, because i have no idea of the inner workings of the band and i'm sure things have ended in ways that we as fans dont know, but this is just a thought that i had after reading the billboard article because it was a bit dodgy in some places and i kind of had to get this out somewhere! 
> 
> title taken from 'love you goodbye', because duh

“How fucking dare you,” is the first thing Zayn hears when he opens his front door. 

The first thing he _sees_ is Niall in cuffed skinny jeans and a button-up with the sleeves rolled up, roots of his hair starting to show the brunette he used to painstakingly cover up, and there’s stubble spreading along the edge of his jaw.

“I-what?” Zayn asks groggily, because he’s hung-over and his head hurts and his eyes hurt and, sue him, he’s finding it a little difficult to believe that Niall is here, in New York, on his front step.

Niall huffs, breath frosting in a cloud before him, and stares Zayn down, eyes so blue and burning that it’s hard to look away. “How fucking you dare you say that we dropped contact with you. I called you the day after the concert and you didn’t fucking answer. How fucking dare you try to put your shame on us – how dare you try to come out looking like the saint in all of this.” He spits each word, body vibrating with anger and suppressed rage and, underneath all of it, hurt.

“Niall, I-“ Zayn starts. The other boy cuts him off. 

“ _You_ left us. In the middle of a fucking world tour. You left us and you gave us three days to try to work out how the _fuck_ we were going to survive and then you were just – you were _gone_. We had to pick up the pieces; we had to put ourselves back together because you gave us no choice! We had to put ourselves back together without you! You can’t – I tried to call and _you_ ignored _me_ so how absolutely _dare_ you think that in all of this you can come out as the one who’s been hurt the most because, fuck you, Zayn, _you abandoned us_!” 

Zayn kind of feels like he’s been shoved in front of a moving train.

Neither says anything for a long time, and Niall’s chest is rising and falling rapidly as they stare at each other and New York wakes up around them, burning to life with the energy it’s known for.

“Are you gonna say _something_?” Niall finally demands, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and narrowing his eyes slightly. He’s angry, and he’s hurt, but he’s tired too. He’s sick of all these games and Zayn – Zayn kind of gets that. 

“Um.” Zayn says, scrubbing a hand over his face as his hung-over brain tries to muddle through the curveball he’s just been thrown. “I, um. I’m sorry?” Except it comes out sounding like a question, word hooked at the end. It comes out sounding like something to fill the space between them. 

Niall’s eyes darken and he scoffs bitterly. “Fucking pathetic.” He hisses as he shoves Zayn aside and roughs his way into Zayn’s apartment block. He’s still mumbling to himself as he stomps up the steps – how does he know where Zayn’s door is? – and pushes into the other boy’s apartment. “Fucking _sorry_ , that’s the best you can do?” 

In spite of it all, anger burns in Zayn’s veins as he follows, slamming the door to his apartment hard enough that the walls shake. “What the fuck do you expect me to say, Niall?” He snaps, and he doesn’t allow himself a moment to watch Niall in his apartment, he _doesn’t_. “It’s been six fucking months, I dunno what you expect me to do, drop to my knees and beg for your forgiveness?” He laughs, sharp and cruel. “S’kinda run its course, hasn’t it, this whole ‘holier-than-thou’ routine?”

Niall whirls, one bony finger extended and lip curled back in a snarl. “You don’t get to be _angry_ , Zayn.” He spits, and the look on his face is so malicious, so cruel, that it’s displaced, doesn’t sit quite right on his features. “You don’t get to try and come out as the martyr in all this.” 

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.” Zayn shoots back, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m telling people the truth, I’m telling the story that people deserve to hear. M’ words aren’t monitored anymore, remember?”

Niall’s jaw clenches and he curls his hands into fists against his sides. “You think that what you’re doing is telling the _truth_? Christ, Malik, you’ve got a pretty distorted version of events, then.” He laughs, this awful, scraping sound that echoes around Zayn’s living room and slices through him. He fixes Zayn with a cruel smile. “From what I remember, you said _I’m leaving the band_ , took a flight three days later and we didn’t hear anything from you after!” 

“I _called_!” Zayn shouts, and he doesn’t give two shits if he’s waking the neighbors because who the _fuck_ does Niall Horan think he is? “Fuck, Niall, I called so many fucking times and none of you picked up the fucking phone!”

“You called once _you_ decided you were ready!” Niall shouts back, stamping his foot like a petulant child. “You called only when everyone else backed out around you! We were an afterthought – tell me, how the _fuck_ do you think that felt?” His hands are trembling when he runs them through his hair, and he looks just this side of manic.

“You were never an afterthought.” Zayn snaps. “I thought about you, all four of you, all the fucking _time_. You were all I ever thought about – I still cared about you! You knew that!”

Niall laughs harshly. “Oh, yeah, because a tweet telling us you like the fucking _single_ definitely tells us how much you care about us.” And, okay, it wasn’t Zayn’s best moment – it had been a way to bridge the gap between them all, a way to try and fix what they had let crumble. In retrospect, he probably should have gone about it differently, but it was a safe way to try. He goes to say something, to defend himself, but Niall talks straight over the top of him. “And then I get to wake up to read some bullshit fucking _Billboard_ article about pride issues and some of us not returning your calls, what the fuck are you, eight years old?”

That spurs Zayn straight back into action, anger thrumming hot under his skin. 

“Liam was the only one who called!” He shouts, throwing his hands up desperately. “You and Louis and Harry all ignored me, and you absolutely do _not_ get to pretend that you didn’t ignore my calls, like you couldn’t even pick up the fucking phone and swallow your fucking pride and fucking _forgive me_!” 

Niall blinks in surprise, and then an awful smile that looks more like a sneer crosses his face. “’Forgive you’?” He repeats. “ _Forgive you_? That’s what you think this is about? About _forgiving_ you?” He laughs again, except it sounds less jagged, less like he’s been dragged through broken glass. “I forgave you the moment you walked out the fucking door, you fucking _prick._ ” He takes a step closer, his blue eyes so bright that it’s looking into the sun. That’s the thing about Niall – he burns so bright and so loud that sometimes you have to look away. Zayn’s all too used to this feeling of inadequacy, like he’s watching a star explode into something beautiful. “This has bypassed beyond forgiving you, Zayn, and I can’t believe you’re naïve enough to think that that’s all this is about.”

He’s much closer than Zayn remembers him being a few minutes ago, and for a minute, it feels like the world has stopped spinning. “So why don’t you tell me?” He asks softly, and it comes out rasping and pleading. “Tell me what this is about.” 

Niall’s staring at him, eyes still burning but there’s something soft there, something he doesn’t look like he’s trying to cover up. Finally, after a long moment, he whispers, “you left first.” Zayn’s breath hitches as he carves out the angles of Niall’s face, the way his lashes curl upwards, the way his nose hooks a little bit. “This is about getting you out of my fucking _bloodstream_.”

And then he closes the distance and kisses Zayn.

He tastes like rain and beer and snow and London and _Niall_ , and Zayn can’t get enough, can’t seem to move close enough. He wants Niall under his skin, wants him in his bloodstream, in his mind, in his eyes. He wants every part of Niall, wants to take him apart piece by piece and get to know the parts of him that have been barred thus far. 

He can’t have that, not now, so he takes what he can and tangles his hands in Niall’s hair.

Niall pulls away and starts pressing kisses down Zayn’s jaw, whispering, “You don’t get to be angry,” and punctuating each word with a kiss, a nip, a bite. Zayn moans softly and scrabbles for purchase at Niall’s back, and then he groans loudly when he’s shoved into the wall of his apartment and Niall’s hips are bracketing him in and a skinny leg is between his, holding him up. “You don’t get to be _angry_.” Niall says again, with a particularly sharp bite at Zayn’s collarbone.

“I miss you.” Zayn pants before he can think to stop himself. But now it’s out there, and he realizes how true it is. He misses him like a limb, like a second heartbeat. “I miss you so fucking much, Niall.” 

Niall, the bastard, has the audacity to laugh as he kisses Zayn again, open-mouthed and desperate. “Whole point of this is to _stop_ missing you.” He whispers, and then he drops to his knees.

Zayn’s brain short-circuits, sue him.

The blond winces when his bad knee hits the hard wood floors, but he barely spares it a thought as his fingers slide under the waistband of Zayn’s pajama bottoms and his pants, and he pulls them down with one fluid movement. Zayn’s a little embarrassed at how ready he is, at how his cock curves up towards his stomach from nothing more than a snog and seeing Niall on his knees.

“Eager?” Niall asks quietly, hot breath puffing over Zayn’s dick, and the other boy is about to reply when he gets a hand around the base, and – _oh_. It stings a little, with the callouses on Niall’s fingers, and he’s gripping a little _too_ tight to be strictly comfortable, but he twists on the upstroke and it makes fireworks burst behind Zayn’s eyelids.

“ _Shit_ , Ni.” He groans, one hand scrambling to run through the blond hair, tightening when Niall does something particularly amazing and his knees go weak. 

Niall moans when Zayn tugs his hair, leans over and licks across the tip of Zayn’s dick, collecting the precome that beads there. “Love you.” He suddenly murmurs, like he can’t stop himself. “Love you so fucking _much_ , and you just – you just left us.” He runs a thumb along the slit and wraps his other arm around Zayn’s knees, keeping him upright. 

Zayn’s breath hitches when he speaks next. “I – I had to.” He gasps out, eyes on the wall in front of him. If he meets Niall’s gaze, he knows for sure that he’ll cry. Or come, and he’s not quite ready to let this moment go. “P-please, you have to understand, I _had to_.” He’s seconds from begging, from pleading, when Niall licks a stripe from the base of his cock to the tip and any incoherent thought flies straight out his mind. 

“I tried.” Niall whispers, still jerking Zayn off, but his movements has slowed considerably. “Fuck, Zee, I fucking _tried_ , but s’not that fucking _easy_.” His wrist tightens reflexively and, with another upstroke and twist, Zayn comes all over Niall’s fist, some splattering onto the other boy’s face. 

Zayn lets out a long moan when his orgasm hits him – there’s a significant difference in jerking yourself off and someone giving you a handjob. And Niall apparently has a lot of practice in – in whatever _that_ was, because that was probably the best orgasm Zayn’s had in a solid six months.

He feels a little wobbly on his feet, a little like the whole world is spinning, and it takes him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that Niall is pushing to his feet and wiping the few droplets of come that landed on his face. Even from Zayn’s place, he looks uncomfortably hard, straining against his tight jeans. “Ni.” Zayn croaks out, fingers twitching towards the blond, but he simply steps away and tucks his hands into his back pockets. Something settles in his eyes that make Zayn’s heart freeze.

“Well, this has been fun.” Niall says, and his whole face looks closed off, like a door has been slammed shut. “But I really must be going. Got a career and whatnot.” He’s turning before Zayn can get a word in edgewise, and it all seems too fast and too unfair and too final, like this is some sort of fucking _goodbye_ , but he can’t get his legs to move or his brain to cooperate with his mouth. 

He wants to tell Niall that he loves him too, that he’s missed him more than he ever thought possible. That it broke his heart when none of them picked up the phones. That it broke his heart when he heard Louis was going to be a dad and Liam had broken up with Sophia and Harry had to deny yet another rumor and Niall worked so fucking hard just to keep the band afloat. But he can’t get the words out, can’t force them through his brain. So he watches as Niall gathers his keys and his phone from where he dropped them, runs a hand through his hair, and heads toward the door. 

Right before he leaves, he tosses a look over his shoulder and smiles softly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Good luck on your album, Zee.” He murmurs, eyelashes fluttering and blue eyes sparkling. “Maybe next time we’ll get it right.” And with that, he’s gone.

The door slams shut behind him, and Zayn doesn’t follow.


End file.
